LOS ANGELES — Just about two weeks into the NBA season, a pair of one-win NBA teams tangled, trying to figure it out Monday night at Staples Center.
The whole scoring-the-basketball thing came back to the Clippers just in time, and they managed to net that elusive Win No. 2; Oklahoma City lost for the sixth time already.
Paul George finished with 32 points, Reggie Jackson added 15 and the Clippers rallied from a nine-point deficit late in the fourth quarter to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 99-94. The Clippers trailed 91-82 after Josh Giddey’s jumper with 2:44 remaining before closing on a 17-3 run to improve to 2-4.
George, who had 27 of his points after halftime (15 in the fourth quarter), also had nine rebounds, seven assists, three steals and a blocked shot. He scored eight points during the late surge, including a 10-footer with 1:08 left to give the Clippers a 93-92 lead, their first since early in the first quarter.
Before Jackson, George and Luke Kennard came alive late, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said he’d warned his team, the NBA’s youngest, to be prepared to face an opponent playing with the desperation of a “cornered animal.”
“We’re trying to develop professional habits and we’re trying to really create an environment where young players can learn all things professional basketball,” said Daigneault, well aware of the Clippers’ past two losses, clunkers in which they conjured only 79 and 92 points.
“There’s certain mindset things that teams have when they’ve got maturity about them, and one of them is kind of competitive empathy, you gotta understand where your opponent is going into a game and the psychology of the opponent. …
“Their offense hasn’t gotten going, and this is probably a game that they’re gonna be ready to rock.”
Instead, the Thunder experienced a team of committed professionals who kept dutifully chiseling away despite being mired in a wild, extended team-wide funk.
“It’s hard,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “You get frustrated when you know you’re getting good shots and you’re not making them, but usually, in the past, it would affect our defense if we weren’t making shots. But this year, that hasn’t been the case. We haven’t been making shots but the guys are still defending, still competing on the defensive end, so if we continue to keep doing that, like I said, shots are gonna fall.”
After missing 35 of their first 50 shots in the first half, the Clippers told each other it couldn’t get much worse and, buoyed by that thought, they finally showed their teeth after halftime.
“We’ve got six or seven guys who shoot above like 38-40% (from 3-point range) last year,” said Nicolas Batum, who scored 14 points and was 4 for 8 from 3-point range. “So that was only four months ago, not three years ago. We’re still there. So just got to stay confident.”
The Clippers acknowledged their elongated cold spell has been confounding; even after Monday’s win, they ended the night ranked 26th in field-goal percentage out of 30 teams (42.0%) and 23rd (31.7%) from 3-point range.
That’s a distant cry from last season’s 41.1% success rate from long range.
“I can’t explain it,” said guard Reggie Jackson, whose struggles – a 43.3% 3-point shooter last season, he’s making only 29.1% of his attempts this season – have been emblematic of what’s been happening with the Clippers.
“We were just in the locker room joking like, ‘Last year, man, we felt like we damn near couldn’t miss.’ We damn near called timeouts for teams knowing how hot we were going to get. And now we’re all just sitting there, with our fingers crossed just hoping one of them drops.
“And then we get it going, get contagious and hopefully start making some more shots.”
They finally broke through in the second half Monday, when they made 20 of 42 in the second half, including 12 of 21 from 3-point range.
Kennard’s first 3-pointers, coming back to back, cut OKC’s 12-point advantage to 66-60. Then George rattled in a 3-pointer to whittle what had been a 15-point lead to just a 3-point deficit with 2:53 left in the quarter.
And then the Clippers didn’t score for another 4 minutes, 39 seconds.
Before that, OKC’s star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – who was traded in 2019 in the blockbuster deal that brought George to the Clippers – had a few cunning retorts in his holster.
Beloved by Clippers fans as a rookie in 2018-19 – on Monday, a fan shouted, “We miss you, Shai!” – used a series of patented start-and-stop moves to free himself to score 15 (of his total 28) points in the third quarter. He shot 5 for 7 in the period, making all three of his 3-point attempts to help the Thunder keep their distance. The Clippers trailed 74-66 entering the fourth quarter.
Despite not scoring until there was 10:14 left, Kennard (14 points) and Batum knocked down a couple of 3-pointers that cut the lead to 74-72.
But again the Thunder – whose only previous win was a 26-point comeback at home against the Lakers – strung together a few baskets.
And the Clippers (2-4) offense still had some fits, some starts, as if it was being toyed with by the basketball gods.
Even easy layups lipped out, like the back-to-back point-blank misses by Kennard and Terance Mann (10 points, many of them hard-charging, tone-changing transition buckets) with 6:30 left in the fourth period after George’s block set up a fastbreak opportunity.
But the Clippers stuck around and kept defending, so when George buried a pair of high-arcing 3-pointers with 2 minutes to play, it sent a surge through the crowd of 13,722 and drew the Clippers back to within three at 91-88.
Then Kennard pulled them even, burying a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:39 to play.
After Darius Bazley made one of his two free throws, George’s 10-footer gave the Clippers a lead.
It was a lead that Jackson – a parched 4-for-16 until then Monday – extended to 95-92 with a timely 6-foot floater with 36.7 seconds left.
George wrapped up his pal in a big hug at center court.
“I just told him this is the worst that the team can shoot,” George said. “I mean obviously we can shoot worse than this, but the real picture, this is the worst that we can shoot. We’re not shooting it well at all. That shot can change his rhythm, that shot right there, it was really the biggest shot of the night to seal it and give us that three-point cushion.
“And so that could be all the confidence he needs going into the next game to make a shot when we needed him to. So it was just a great moment for me and him. We’ve both been struggling tonight, and so to get a game on that note was a good moment.”
Jackson scored seven of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, when he and Kennard also knocked down two free throws apiece in the final moments to get the Clippers back in the win column.
Surmised Lue: “I don’t care if we win 4-3, I take it, I’ll take it.”
The Clippers were outrebounded by at least 20 in their recent losses to Cleveland and Portland, but they broke even against the Thunder, 51-51.
Second-half showcase in LA
@Yg_Trece goes off for 27 PTS in the second half and finishes with 32 PTS, 9 REB and 7 AST in the @LAClippers comeback win! pic.twitter.com/6AbRE4MPzA
— NBA (@NBA) November 2, 2021
Luke Kennard ties it late! 1:18 to play on NBA League Pass!@okcthunder 91@LAClippers 91
: https://t.co/V0kkYEEIkG pic.twitter.com/ExHm4nDbfZ
— NBA (@NBA) November 2, 2021
Paul George and Reggie Jackson give the @LAClippers the lead for good as they complete the comeback at home! pic.twitter.com/IghOMPCR1O
— NBA (@NBA) November 2, 2021